


Lay Open

by JKRT



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Hurt as comfort?, Hurt/Comfort, Knifeplay, Masochist Steve Rogers, No Blood, Platonic BDSM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 06:57:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JKRT/pseuds/JKRT
Summary: Steve is losing it a little and Natasha has a way to help. (Set post Winter Soldier.)





	Lay Open

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this late at night in a fit about a year ago and have been debating posting it ever since. Today we take the plunge.
> 
> This fic assumes that Steve has super resilient skin and/or some kind of minor healing factor, but I also wrote platonic bdsm that involves Captain America so do I really care if it makes sense? (There's no way that boy's not a masochist, we all know it.)

“You,” she says slowly, “look  _ frazzled _ .”

“I am not  _ frazzled, _ Natasha.” Steve replies, running his hand through his hair for the umpteenth time.

Their latest lead only culminated in a dead end. A dead end stacked on another dead end, all the information they had collected so far only amounting to a Jenga tower of dead ends and outdated tips. He’s poring over one of those files now, looking for something they  _ missed _ because there  _ must be _ something they missed, it doesn't make  _ sense _ how they could keep losing the trail like this--

“Steve.” Natasha’s voice cuts through the growing static as easily as changing the channel. He looks up at her. She is sitting on the couch, open book in hand and poised to turn the page, but her attention is wholly on him. Natasha is a study in posed elegance; She looks picture perfect with that book, like she’s enjoying a lovely Sunday at home rather than hunkered down in a cottage safe house as a fugitive, trying to track down a world class assassin. Her practiced ease doesn't apply to her eyes though, not when she doesn't want it to. Casual investment is a look she can shutter on and off in a blink, and right now she clearly wants to make use of the full weight of her stare.

Steve really has to dig in his heels to contend with that on his best days, and today is dangling far off the underbelly of ‘average’.

He can't lie to her. (She’d know anyway.) Something in him cracks instead. Cracks more, maybe.

“I just-- I don't know what I’m doing, Nat.” He confesses, leaving his hair alone for once to instead rake his hands over his face. “I can't think anymore.”

Where others might snap their book shut, Natasha closes it softly, setting it aside in one fluid motion as she rises off the couch and pads over to meet him at the table. She stands over him, hands akimbo, surveying the mess of papers on the table and the mess he’s made of himself. She hums noncommittally. 

“You're tense--”

“No  _ shit _ .” No thinking means no tact, and he can't bring himself to feel remotely bad about that, not right now. She pinches his shoulder and he half-heartedly bats her hand away.

“-- not as though you aren't normally made of steel cabling  _ anyway _ \--” and that gets a snort of laughter out of him. There's the slightest upturn at the corner of Natasha’s mouth to show she’s pleased her joke landed, and she continues.

“-- but you're tenser than usual, and its messing with your head. You need to focus on something else. Something you can lose yourself in.” The gritty static in his head is growing more shrill and its smearing him across the edge he’s already teetering on.

He bites out, “What else  _ is _ there to focus on?” Being on the run doesn't leave them with a lot of choices for recreational activities. Natasha cocks her head to one side and she gets a sharp gleam in her eye.

“Something that demands all of your attention. Something that doesn't leave you room to think.” She straightens her head and says resolutely, “You need to hurt. Come with me.”

“Natasha, I’m  _ really _ not in a good mood to spar right now.” But he’s leaving his chair and following her anyway.

“Not a fighting hurt. More controlled than that.”

Enigmatic as always, but Steve’s gears are screeching when he tries to grind them so now's not the time to puzzle it out.

Natasha walks into his bedroom and steals a pillow off the bed, dropping it unceremoniously on the floor and walking into his bathroom. She comes back with the small bucket from under the sink and a clean hand towel. She lowers the bucket to the ground by the pillow, careful not to slosh any of the water from it, and then sits beside it. She looks up at him expectantly and pats the pillow in front of her.

“Take off your shirt and lie on your stomach.” Begrudgingly, Steve does, yanking off his t-shirt and letting it fall on the floor, then levering himself to the ground so that his face rests on the pillow. He has to squash it around to give himself space to breathe.

“And?” He asks. 

“Hold on.” Natasha scootches closer and throws a leg over either of his arms and tucks her bare feet just under his ribs.

Above him there is noise that can only be metal being drawn from leather. Steve immediately pushes at the floor, making to stand.

“Was that a  _ knife _ ?” Natasha has him by the hair and shoves him back down against the pillow, her legs over his arms tightening like vices. There’s a single hard point of pressure against his back, right between the vertebrae. He can't tell if it's a blade.

“Do you trust me, Steve?” He answers immediately, “ _ Yes _ \--” but is interrupted before he can get any other words out.

“Good. Then just  _ trust me _ .” The pressure shifts and he can tell now that it's her fingertip, the nail biting sharply into his skin but the rounded pad is warm and distinct and the relief breaks over him, heavy and roiling, and okay - maybe there’s something to this after all.

Natasha draws her finger in little concentric circles, getting lighter and lighter until her touch disappears. 

“Just breathe steady. This’ll hurt, but that's the point.” Steve takes a deep breath and holds it before letting it out as he nods into the pillow.

“Alright,” he says, and he does his best not to brace himself for whatever is coming.

He feels something trace across his back, featherlight, giving him goosebumps. And then without warning, it digs in, lighting up a thin trail of fire along his skin. He flexes instinctively, hissing and gritting his teeth.

“ _ Breathe _ ,” Natasha prompts, and he’s letting out a long shuddering exhale. There's the wash of adrenaline that always accompanies pain - like a layer of frost forming and melting and evaporating all within the span of seconds - and the paper thin cut is already closed and he feels a little looser.

“You good?” She asks, her tone level and bordering on uninvested; the fact that she asked at all betraying her concern.

“Yeah,” he says, panting a little. He sounds surprised, even to his own ears. He furrows his brow against the pillow. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Okay,” she says, still all business, “Because here we go again.”

Time drags so much as to practically stand still as Steve loses himself in a steady pattern of hurt and relief. Natasha’s careful not to ever cross the same area twice, but some of the cuts come so close as to almost be overlapping.

If he flexes his back, he can feel them all, skin pulling at the razor thin lines, threatening to split again, but never following through. Sometimes a bead of sweat rolls over one and he gasps at the fresh sting of it, before Natasha wipes it away with a thumb, not breaking her rhythm.

It’s over before Steve knows it, Natasha having carved her way across his entire back, all the way down to his waist. There's the hush of metal against fabric, and then the distinct rasp of metal against leather and a thump as Natasha sets the knife on the floor. Water gushes and patters, and something wet unfurls. Natasha lays the cloth over his back and it knocks the breath out of him, the shock of the cold.

“Now just lay here for bit. Relax, if you can.”

Not like that’s difficult. He’s thoroughly, bonelessly dead tired, his vision blurry even when he tries to focus. The static in his head has died down to something soft and fuzzy, compared to the grating shriek it used to be. When he takes a deep breath, it disappears completely.

He focuses on evening out his breathing.

Once he’s got it - slow and deep - the static is gone, and he feels…not refreshed, since the pain still lingers indistinctly as a bank of embers across his whole back, but...repaired. Put together again.

His breathing hitches as Natasha peels away the now lukewarm cloth. The sheen of water left behind is cool again as it evaporates, taking the lingering irritation with it.

They sit in silence for several pleasantly long minutes, until Steve’s back is dry and he’s outright drowsy. The distant ache in his back is pleasurable, like the result of a hard day’s work. Better than, even, considering what he’d need to do now a days in order to qualify it as a ‘hard day’s work’ and how quickly he’d recover from it.

“Thank you…” he breathes, and doesn't bother opening his eyes.

“Any time,” Natasha answers, absently dragging her fingers over the short fuzz of his hair.

He falls asleep there. 

When he wakes up to the pre-dawn bird chatter the next morning, alone, there’s not a mark on him.

But there's a knife he doesn't recognize sitting sheathed on his bedside table. For anyone else that might be threatening.

Steve sees it and just smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Please for the love of all that is holy, do not engage in surprise knifeplay with anyone, ever.


End file.
